While you can’t get a Steam Deck off Valve directly without joining a hefty waitlist, the market for handheld gaming PCs is becoming increasingly crowded, in part driven by the success of Valve’s machine. We’ve now got eyes on yet another new competitor – the AyaNeo Air.
For those unfamiliar with the company and device, the AyaNeo brand has been peddling these sorts of handheld gaming products for a while now, though it has typically specialized in extremely high-end devices running at prices in excess of $1000. The Air introduces a new direction for the brand, however – cheaper, more accessible, and with a design and form factor more akin to the Steam Deck or Nintendo Switch.
The new AyaNeo Air boasts a 5.5 inch 1080p AMOLED display, an AMD Ryzen 5 5000U processor with Vega integrated graphics, and can be configured with up to 32gb of RAM and up to 2tb of storage – with room to expand via an M.2 slot. All of this comes in significantly cheaper than any previous AyaNeo device,
Prices starting at $549 (8gb RAM, 128gb SSD), and will run up to be much more expensive for the top-end machine – in fact, AyaNeo hasn’t even released the price for the top-of-the-line machine, which features 32gb of RAM, a 2tb SSD, and a more powerful processor – but it’s likely to be in line with the other AyaNeo machines in pushing a grand.
If $549 is still too rich for your blood, AyaNeo also confirmed that it plans to release an even cheaper model, the AyaNeo Air Plus. Consider this the ‘Lite’ version of the machine; it features a 6-inch screen and AMD’s new Mendocino APU. This APU was designed for ultra small laptops, and while we don’t know its exact performance metrics it’s inevitably going to be a much more modest machine performance-wise – perhaps best suited for higher-end emulation than modern PC games. Still, the price suits: the Air Plus will retail starting at $289.
As well as the specs, both versions of the AyaNeo Air differ from other machines from this company in their design, featuring a more smooth-edged, ergonomic look that far more closely resembles the portable efforts from Nintendo and Valve.
The downside, as pointed out by hardware site Liliputing, is the machine’s reported battery size – at least for the regular AyaNeo Air. Something had to give in order to get the ergonomics down and the price right – and it appears to be battery life. The entry level AyaNeo Air will only give around an hour in a graphically intensive game, and a couple in a less testing 2D indie gem. While ‘Pro’ variants offer slightly bigger batteries, those models don’t even double those numbers; this is a small machine, but one you’ll inevitably need toc carry the AC adapter for, too.
We don’t yet know battery details for the Air Plus, though given it’s a less powerful machine, it’s likely to have a longer battery life, thankfully.
The PC gaming handheld market is hotting up, and right now it’s getting perhaps a little too crowded – but it’s exciting to see Valve’s support of this category driving innovation and rivals to the Steam Deck. For now, the Steam Deck remains the gold standard sweet spot of performance, price, and build quality – but I’m looking forward to putting some of these new devices through their paces.
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